The Epic of Gleib
by Tony de la Ghetto
Summary: Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.  Story that takes place before the Great Ninja Wars.  It follows Gleib, an occ, who doesn't belong to a clan.  He's an active ninja who stays out of political conflicts of the ninja world. But he really is unique.


Long ago, before any of the great ninja villages existed, clans of ninja fought one another for money, land, and power. This was the time the Uchiha and Senju fought for the right price. There where no ninja schools, no hospitals, no infrastructure. This was a time of oppression, a time of constant warfare. In this time a child existed, named Gleib and he was 7 years old. He was no child of prophecy, he possessed no keckei genki, he had no unique ocular ability, no tailed beast sealed within him, and he was just a child, a child who would re-define what it would mean to be a ninja.

He lived in a one road town, on the edge of the desert that would later become part of the sand village. Gleib's mom was the innkeeper of the town, his dead was killed at the hands of two shinobi. Gleib grew up with mixed emotions about ninjas, as not all of the ninjas he knew where bad. A frequent customer, the Nara clan, was a great friend of Gleib's family. They even taught him about chakra, how to do shadow clone jutsu, and the tree climbing exercise, though Gleib's parents never knew. Gleib was a fast learner, who showed extraordinary chakra control abilities, and possessed above average reserves of chakra.

It had been a month or so since the Nara the clan had been through the town, and since then Gleib had practiced very hard on his chakra control by doing tree climbing training. When Masashi Nara returned with a cabbage merchant he checked in at Gleib's family in and left two other Nara's on patrol, and went off to the woods with Gleib to see how his training had progressed. They told his mom that they where going for a walk, just two guys.

They walked about ten minutes out into the woods and stopped at a big tree. There Masashi told Gleib to run as high up on the tree as he could and to not be disappointed if he didn`t make it up all the way. Gleib lifted his leg up and placed it on the tree so he had one on the ground and one on the tree. He proceeded to walk up the tree, the walk turned into a jog, the jog turned into a run. Gleib stopped ¾ of the way up, stopped, and then looked back down at Masashi with a big smile on his face. Masashi smirked back at Gleib, but on the inside he was more impressed then he would care to admit. Here was a seven year old boy STANDING on the side of a tree. Normally, that would just be a little surprising, but this boy essentially self-taught himself this. Just then Masashi's smirk turned to fear when he saw a shinobi appear right behind Gleib. Gleib turned and saw the shinobi swinging a giant shurikan towards him, but Masashi caught the enemy shinobi in a shadow possession jutsu. As soon as the shadow possession touched the shinobi Masashi realized that it was a shadow clone! At that point he knew it was too late. The actual shinobi did a head hunter jutsu on Masashi. The shinobi pulled out a kunai and swung it at Masashi's neck. Just then Gleib jumped extraordinarily fast and grabbed the shinobi's wrist right before it killed Masashi. Gleib glared at the shinobi as a shadow clone of Gleib's kicked the shinobi in the side. The shinobi went flying. Masashi undid the headhunter jutsu and did a shadow possession on the shinobi when he landed. Masashi ran over to the shinobi and screamed, "Why are you trying to kill Gleib?".

The shinobi replied, "because he killed my comrades".

"Those where YOUR comrades!", Gleib screamed.

Gleib dashed at the shinobi with a kunai out ready to kill, when Masashi shadow possessed Gleib as well.

"Gleib, what are you doing?", shouted Masashi.

"His Comrades killed my father!", shouted Gleib.

Just then Masashi's shadow possession, on the shinobi, turned into a shadow strangle, and the fight was over. He let go of Gleib and they talked about what happened that night.

"My dad was cleaning up the front room of the inn when these two ninja came and demanded our money. My dad refused and one of them threw a kunai at him. He fell to the ground in a puddle of blood. I have never felt so angry before Masashi. Next thing I new I launched at the two shinobi faster than I had ever moved until that point.", explained Gleib.

"What do you mean?", said Masashi.

Gleib proceeded to show Masashi how he could make two bubbles, or one bubble of chakra under his feet and that when he made it pop, it launched him. It even allowed him to drastically change direction in mid air.

"That`s how I was able to fight them. I was able to dodge their kunai. I even managed to position myself in between the two of them so that when one of them threw a kunai, he killed the other. The shinobi that was left was enraged he proceeded to fire ball the entire room after me. It was so cool, I could charge him, and when he would blast a fire ball in my direction I would just jump out of the way. We were even in speed so I to kill him I jumped on a wall and made a bubble so big, it blew out the side of the wall and I launched threw the fire ball he sent at me. It hurt a lot, but it didn't matter, because my kunai didn't miss its target.", said Gleib.

It wasn't that Gleib felt good about what he had done, but rather, he felt indifferent. He knew that his father had done nothing wrong, but he wasn`t sure if violence needed to be responded with more violence. Gleib rationalized though, that if these men were doing this to his father, what must they have to done to other people?

"Gleib if you hadn`t killed them, they would have killed more innocent people. I have one question though Gleib, why didn`t you save your dad if you could do all of that. I mean I just saw how fast you can move, and is unbelievable, for a kid your age.", said Masashi.

"I was too scared. I didn't know I could do that either, until I did." said Gleib.

"Well now that I know what you are capable of, and knowing the danger you can be and are now in, I feel that I should give you a few scrolls along with a little bit of training before I leave tomorrow.", said Masashi.

Masashi proceeded to teach Gleib how to meditate, and show him what to look for within himself. He showed Gleib how to materialize chakra around weapons, but Gleib wasn't very good. The next morning Masashi left and told Gleib he would be back in a week, and that he expected improvement, as he chuckled. Masashi left.


End file.
